Study programme

When deciding what to study you undoubtedly read a lot of information about your study programme. Leiden University employs various systems to provide information about programmes and courses and to facilitate communication between lecturers and students.

The e-prospectus contains information about all the courses within your study programme. Here you can find all you need to know about your programme. Via Blackboard you can communicate with your lecturers and submit assignments.

The Computer Science master programme offers future-oriented topics in computer science, with a focus on both foundations and applications of advanced algorithms and techniques. In this programme, you will learn to discover meaningful patterns in data (= Data Analytics) via advanced data mining, optimization, and decision support techniques. The motto of the master is Smart Computing for Science and Society, pointing to the manifold collaborations with other disciplines (= for Science), with companies and with organizations (= for Society), and to the strong emphasis on connecting research with applications within the programme.

The Computer Science programme has the following specializations:

The "Computer Science and Advanced Data Analytics" provides a clear focus on modern computer science with big data and data science, multimedia and bioinformatics, cyberphysical systems, software engineering, and other components. Applications of these smart computing technologies are explicitly considered in the master to establish a connection to real-world problems relevant in science and society.

The "Bioinformatics" specialisation of the Master in Computer Science integrates concepts and methods from both mathematics and computer science with (molecular) biology and biochemistry. It focuses on research, development and application of computational tools and approaches for expanding the use of biological, medical, behavioural and health data. This includes many aspects from acquiring to analyzing and to visualizing data. This specialisation also deals with the development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods, mathematical modelling and computational simulation techniques to the study of biological, behavioural, and social systems.

The "Data Science" specialisation of the Master in Computer Science is an interdisciplinary master at the border between statistical science and computer science. It focussed on the statistical and computational aspects of Data Science as well as on its application. Data Science aim at discovering of knowledge from typically large set of structured or unstructured data. To achieve this goal, data scientists use statistical methods and machine learning in combination with exploration and optimization algorithms from computer science. The MSc specialisation Data Science equips students interested in data analysis with state-of-the-art knowledge in the advanced statistical techniques, machine learning and algorithmic aspects of data analysis. The programme is a unique collaboration between the Leiden Institute for Advanced Computer Science and Mathematical Institute.

The "Computer Science and Education" specialisation is offered as a joint programme with the Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching (ICLON). It prepares students for a career as computer science (in Dutch: ‘informatica’) teacher.

The technical areas covered within our master include the following:

Data Mining

Embedded Systems

Foundations of Computer Science

Formal Methods

Imaging and Bioinformatics

Advanced Algorithms

Multimedia Systems

Natural Computing

Technology and Innovation management

Application Areas

Interdisciplinary research opportunities as well as industrial applications provide you with exciting possibilities. The industrial application areas and interdisciplinary activities include, among others:

Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, Medicine, Pharma

Physics

Engineering Applications

Logistics Applications

Energy and Utility related Applications

Financial Applications

Collaborations

Students at LIACS benefit from our diverse collaborations and the possibilities for internships and projects with our partners. Among the companies and institutions collaborating with LIACS are, e.g.:

BMW

BlueRidge Analytics

Logica

Honda

ING

KEMA

NXP

Strukton

Trigion

Career

Your perspectives with a LIACS M.Sc. in Computer Science are excellent and diverse. They range from software engineer to product manager, from researcher to IT-manager, and from engineering to financial applications, from business intelligence specialist to service manager or consultant. And the demand is constantly growing. With this education, 96.9% of all graduates have a full-time job, and they find a job within an average time of 1.3 months.

Formal Details

The duration of the study is 24 months (full time), starting September 1 or February 1 (specialization only February 1). This corresponds with 120 EC (1 EC = 28 hours of work).